


3 + 1 = 3

by SingingTheThunder



Series: The History of the Rowdy 3 [1]
Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Big Bang Challenge, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotion Eating, Implied knife play, M/M, Multi, No Smut, Polyamory, Swearing, this time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 05:42:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10960890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingingTheThunder/pseuds/SingingTheThunder
Summary: "No one has ever (with the notable exception of Dirk Gently in a fit of extreme sarcasm) described the Rowdy 3 as subtle. Their first meeting matched that pattern spectacularly. The official story, or at least the one that ended up in the newspapers, was that a group of 'youths' had broken into the abandoned hotel and set off a very large amount of fireworks. What was in official CIA files was closer to the truth, but still vastly inaccurate."Written for the Dirk Gently Beginner Bang. Thanks to my beta preeeow and to the mods for organising this.Art by the talented mlentertainment can be found at https://mlentertainment.tumblr.com/post/160907407701/for-my-flesh-had-turned-to-fur-yeah-and-my





	3 + 1 = 3

Again, his face slammed into the asphalt and again, he shoved himself up. There were two of them, both bigger, but he'd always been scrappy. He wiped his bleeding lip on the back of his hand and squared up to them. They were between him and the corner of the building, behind him was a dead end, a wall he might have a chance of getting over if only he had a run up and no one to drag him back down. This wasn't the first time or even the tenth, he knew full well they wouldn't give up until they had what they wanted, in this case an apology for daring to be bumped into by one of them.

It would be easy to give up, give them what they wanted and avoid any more pain.

Fuck easy.

Easy meant losing. Easy meant being scared. Easy meant quitting next time and the time after that until he rolled over for anyone.

His thrown punch was easily caught and the bigger boy squeezed, hard enough that the bones in his hand clicked. With all his focus on getting his fist free, he didn't see the punch coming from his right. He lost his footing and for a second hung from the other boy's arm, dazed.

Something clicked. It wasn't his hand this time. He felt the infinitely faceted Rubik Cube we call the universe twist one more time and fall still, one side complete.

Curiosity flooded his mind. Curiosity and welcome. The pain in his body suddenly seemed unimportant. There were probably things less important in the moment, but they were so tangential none of them came to mind.

It felt like ice cream on a summer's day and hot chocolate on a winter's day. It was home. It was family.

They were family. There were three others, the same as whatever he was and their emotions, thoughts and memories bled and spun, a kaleidoscope of love-home-welcome-joy.

He didn't know how long they danced-melded-fought-dreamed, it felt both endless and not nearly long enough. The impact of the ground and the kick to his ribs shortly after barely  
registered, but it was met with a flare of anger and possessiveness from the others.

His arm shot out and caught the foot as it drew back again. He opened his eyes, somehow having angled his head so he was looking straight into the eyes of the boy whose leg he now held.

 

They smiled.

 

When he had joined them in the space their minds occupied, they had been relatively close physically or at least in the next state. Once the boys who had been hurting him stopped wriggling, he had walked out the school gates with nothing but the clothes he was wearing and some chewing gum in his pocket. It was pure instinct that pointed him in the right direction, as simple a sense as hearing or smell.

From the other direction, the other three drove towards him. With every millimeter they advanced the sense of each other got stronger. Thankfully, the universe was on their side and nothing actually impassable stood between them, though the three in the van did have to go through two parks and a shopping mall.

He'd reached the highway before he started having second thoughts. His parents would worry when he didn't come home from school and what did he really know about these presences in his mind anyway? Tentatively, he tried to move his mind to the same place it was when they first joined. It was not quite the same this time. They let him in easily, circling at a distance; wolves in the trees around a clearing.

But he was a wolf too.

A silvery wolf with a dark belly was the first to approach, barreling out of the trees and into him. He had not been expecting an attack; the emotions he could feel were playful and curious. It was only when the silver wolf had him pinned on his back and stood over him, that he realized the intent had not been to hurt him. The silver wolf happily licked his muzzle, tail wagging, then backed off a few paces.

He stayed still, belly up, not feeling in any current danger, but not wanting to test their patience. The other two wolves, one easily twice his size and dark brown and the other glossy black, trotted out to examine him now. He submitted to their investigation, but when they retreated to join the silver he scrabbled onto his paws.

_What the hell?!_ he snarled, not exactly speaking or thinking, but some combination of both that went out as naturally as their emotions came in. _What is this place? What did you do to those guys?_

The silver wolf expressed amusement which echoed round the clearing like a man's chuckle, earning himself a nip from the much larger dark brown wolf. It was the black wolf that answered in a flow of short concepts rather than coherent sentences.

_Home. Of many forms. We are here. Family. Ours. Protecting family. You are family. Therefore ours. Universe-god-controller-machine's gift._

He tried to scowl not liking the idea of being owned by or given to anyone. His wolf body wasn't able to physically express this, but he was sure the message got across anyway.

The largest wolf's 'voice' was surprisingly soft, they all felt safe (something he was immediately suspicious of), but this went beyond that. _You are scared. No danger. Fear allowed. Time allowed. Family. Difficulty. Family's gift. Answers._ _Gift when family …_ There was a sense of confusion, they'd never needed a 'word' for this before, then _… Touch?_

He 'scowled' again. _Not sure I want to touch any of you._

The silver wolf's laugh rang out again, this time joined by that of another, he could only tell that the dark brown wolf was the one not amused because of the source of the growl at the other two.

_Ha ha._ He wasn't sure wolves were capable of sarcasm, but they got the message. _I don't even know your names, for all I know you're some sort of telepathic … kidnappers?_ That seemed unlikely, he could feel their every emotion and there was nothing close to deceit and he could feel their memories bubbling just under the surface, easy enough to pull closer if he wished.

_Martin._

It took him a moment to understand. Apparently, words were harder to interpret than pure concept, but he couldn't go around calling them _safety, family, curiosity_ all the time. The name presumably belonged to the silver wolf who hadn't yet spoken. It felt like his laugh.

_Okay, cool. Weirdly normal for a telepathic wolf, but you do you._ He'd been expecting another soft chuckle, but instead was overwhelmed by an outpouring of affection.

_I like this kid,_ Martin informed the whole group. _No wait, I'm supposed to say 'appreciation you' or some shit, right? Anyway, the big guy is Cross and the cute one is Gripps._

The dark brown wolf, Cross, finally laughed, warming him to the core. It took a few moments to puzzle out the meaning of Martin's words and when he did he bristled in anger, how dare they treat him like he was stupid?

It was the black wolf (presumably Gripps 'the cute one' though he didn't find anything particularly cute about the apex predator) that padded forward, providing a steady sense of reassurance. _We remember learning to 'talk'. No embarrassment using easy 'words'_ _at first_ _. We want to help you._

_Really?_ Martin asked. _I thought we were just fucking with him for the hell of it._

He could sense a tension brewing, one that they had had variations on many times before and enjoyed immensely. He quickly interjected, _In case any of you care, I'm Vogel._ It wasn't strictly true; his mother's surname didn't feature anywhere in his legal name. It did, however, feel a lot more true than any of the alternatives.

_I like that,_ Martin said. _Our little bird._

Before Vogel could protest the description, a current of fear ran through the whole group. There was a quick communication that was far too fast for Vogel to follow, then Cross and Martin _faded_. He could still sense them though they were fainter and their wolf bodies had vanished. Gripps moved closer to Vogel, soothing, but serious.

_Danger._ Gripps informed him. _We're not sure with us or you. You need to go back._ The instructions Gripps gave were impossible to translate into words.

Vogel _returned._

 

It was disorientating having a human body again. Vogel had no idea how long he had been standing still, but some things had definitely changed. A semi had pulled up a short distance away and a man had got out. The man was not a nice man.

He was the first person Vogel had been close enough to focus properly on ever since this whole mind sharing thing started.

“Hey, kid!” The man's tone and wave were friendly, but Vogel could _feel_ a coiling poison behind his smile.

Vogel instinctively started backing away, only to feel a hand, Gripps', on his shoulder, stopping him going any further. He spun round, then realized it was entirely mental communication. Rather more distantly Vogel could still sense Martin and Cross, they were enjoying themselves. There was the occasional spike of adrenaline and heightened pleasure. Apparently, the danger had been at both locations.

The hand that then landed on Vogel's shoulder was entirely real. “Kid, I'm talkin' to you, don't be fucking rude.”

Gripps turned and punched him in the face. Vogel had felt his body be used by the others once before, but at the time he had been too busy floating in the mind place to care. This was … not wrong, because it felt as natural as breathing or inhabiting his own skin.

It was a presumption.

“Ask next time,” Vogel said, unsure if Gripps could hear him.

The man's lip was bleeding and Vogel could feel the sting as an echo of his earlier pain. The man wiped his lip on his sleeve – _cheap shirt, stubble catching –_ shock fading to anger. The man spoke, the sound an echo of the thought. “That was a mistake, kid. Now I'm really -”

He didn't bother to listen to the end of the man's threat. He could guess from the thunderstorm of emotion. He could hardly interpret the things his physical senses were telling him, his world narrowed to the man's mind, Gripps at his shoulder and the distant sparks of Cross and Martin.

“I'm hungry,” Vogel said or perhaps he thought, it made no difference. Blue lightning sprung into being around his closed fists as he advanced. The man panicked, a beautiful note of fear joining the symphony, and backed away.

_There was a loose stone._ There was a loose stone and the man fell. The pain danced across Vogel's back, kicking up more sparks. Gripps took his wrists and showed him how to direct the electricity. It sunk into the man like a hooked and weighted fishing net. Vogel knelt next to the figure on his back in the dusty grass and held his hands as close to the man's chest as he could without touching. He wanted to get closer, to absorb the maelstrom, but Gripps held him back. He snarled and fought, unmoving and silent.

Gripps released Vogel by choice. _A lesson_ _learned the hard way. Effective._ Vogel didn't care.

His hands clamped around the man's throat, head bowed so low their foreheads touched. Vogel took. He took the pain and the anger and the fear and the _poison_ and the lust and the sorrow and the joy and the and the and the –

He took things he had no words for. Things that there were no words for.

Vogel only stopped when there was nothing left to take.

The dusty strip of grass next to the highway faded back slowly. The man was still breathing, but his eyes were unfocused and he didn't respond when Vogel jerked away from him. The boy scrabbled away a couple of meters, then curled in on himself, shaking. He couldn't feel the man any more. He'd just wanted to hurt the man enough to make him leave, not this. He flinched when Gripps' mind brushed at the edge of his, then threw himself towards Gripps. He felt the other mind wrap around his, something similar to an embrace. Vogel could feel the other two finish their own feeding and turn their attention to the connection.

When they felt Vogel's distress, their first response was to snarl at Gripps, assuming he'd not managed to protect their new pup. Gripps snarled right back, sending them the relevant memory and wrapping his mind around Vogel even tighter. Martin and Cross calmed immediately and Vogel, whose fear had understandably spiked, settled slightly as Gripps expressed a mental eye roll.

Seconds later, he tensed again and instinctively threw up a mental shield, pushing Cross' consciousness as far away as was possible when you weren't working with physical space. Both Gripps and Martin were quietly amused. Cross did the mental equivalent of picking himself up and dusting himself down, expressing unconcern and a complete lack of embarrassment very loudly, like a cat that had just done something silly.

Martin's 'tone' when he spoke was playful. _Pay attention when people tell you shit, Cross._ _You'll end up on your ass less. Let me show you how it's done._ He turned his attention to Vogel and directed his next words towards him. _Hey, little bird, you okay with me getting your body to somewhere safer? You don't gotta move and I swear I won't let it get roughed up too bad._

Cross muttered a few choice things Martin could do with his own ass, but still sent a soft apology to Vogel. Martin waited until he got hesitant permission from Vogel, then shot a predatory grin in Cross' direction. _Later and if you look after the new kid well enough, we might even let you join in._

Cross nonchalantly flipped Martin the bird, then faded out to his real world location, setting himself up as a physical guard while the other three were 'away'.

Vogel felt Martin step into his body like watching someone else walk into water you know is too cold. It was weird getting input from his senses while his body was piloted by someone else. When Martin looked at the man, still lying motionless with nothing but his breathing to show he was alive at all, it was Vogel that saw.

He instinctively screwed his eyes shut, causing Martin to stumble. Martin's 'tone' was soft, but with an undercurrent of impatience and annoyance he was trying to suppress. _Hey, little bird, I need you to open your eyes now. You don't have to see, just let me deal with this body shit and you focus on that emotion. You took more than you can digest, you gotta give it time to settle._

Vogel didn't exactly open his eyes, instead he gave Martin full control of them. He felt Martin open their eyes, but he saw no more than he had seen through Martin's eyes when Martin had been in his own body, just little glimpses of detail, mixed in with feeling and memory. Vogel sunk into Gripps' embrace and let the emotions he had taken wash over him, dragging him into unconsciousness.

 

No one has ever (with the notable exception of Dirk Gently in a fit of extreme sarcasm) described the Rowdy 3 as subtle. Their first meeting matched that pattern spectacularly. The official story, or at least the one that ended up in the newspapers, was that a group of 'youths' had broken into the abandoned hotel and set off a very large amount of fireworks. What was in official CIA files was closer to the truth, but still vastly inaccurate.

Martin parked the semi or at least stopped and turned the engine off since the vehicle was far too large for the road outside the abandoned Los Angeles hotel. He jumped down and was greeted by Cross and Gripps, both curious to see their new companion or at least his physical form.

“See, not a scratch,” Martin said, spinning so Cross and Gripps could see he'd kept Vogel safe, his arms spread wide for the hell of it.

“Don't wake him,” Gripps cautioned, “He's had a hell of a day.”

With a soft oh of realization, quickly followed by a mental wave of annoyance, Martin dropped out of Vogel's body. _Since you're both out here cooing over the little bird, my body ain't got any protection!_ he grumbled, manifesting a door in their shared mind space for the sole purpose of slamming as he returned to his body. The time away from it, several hours, had been enough that his muscles had cramped and it was with much swearing and many threats that he got to his feet.

Outside, Cross had jumped to gracefully catch Vogel's body as it had collapsed without anyone piloting. With Gripps' assistance, he carried the unresponsive boy inside and lay him down on one of the mattresses they'd taken from the still furnished rooms upstairs and set up in the office to one side of the lobby. They had managed to fit seven flat on the floor without gaps between them and added a jumble of blankets and pillows. Judging by where those blankets and pillows had ended up, a very localized whirlwind had swept through recently.

They'd actually left that room the most intact, with only a couple of impact marks from something heavy having been swung at the walls and the few splintered bits of the desk they hadn't managed to drag into the lobby to burn yet.

It still wasn't the most comforting thing Vogel could have woken up to. He sat up, panic rising, but Gripps' hand on his shoulder immediately calmed him.

Or at least it did until he realized the hand was physical.

He startled, twisting to look at Gripps, who smiled at him and sent a sense of welcome through their mind link.

“Hi?” Vogel asked, unsure if verbal or psychic communication was the polite thing to do. Even though he hadn't seen Gripps' physical form before, he recognized him easily, his sixth sense, the one that could feel other people's emotions, overriding his sight. That was the only familiar thing about the place, however.

“You're in LA. An old hotel we found,” Gripps explained, automatically answering Vogel's thoughts instead of his words. It was an unfamiliar form of communication, a mixture of shared thought and verbal. To anyone observing Gripps' was just saying the occasional apparently unrelated word. To Vogel, however, it was intuitive, far easier to understand than plain speech with its strange rules and reliance on tone and body language. Vogel had never got the hang of body language.

He tried the combined method himself, “What happened with …” _An image of the man from earlier lying still._

“He'll recover,” Gripps said, deciding on the harsh truth after a second. “It'll take a few days, someone will probably rescue him before then. If they don't … well, it's rare that we kill someone, but not impossible.”

Vogel stared at Gripps for a long moment, processing that. It was difficult to feel much about the subject, he'd felt the man's emotions, he knew how little happiness and love there had been to take and how much more hate and anger and fear. He couldn't say maybe being responsible for someone's death felt good, but if that was all the man had to offer he didn't feel particularly bad either.

He changed the subject. “Where are … Martin and Cross?”

“The others are … working off some steam. You probably don't want to get in between them right now.”

Vogel sent an investigative tendril of his mind towards Cross and Martin and reeled when he found them. The intensity of emotion was greater than any he had felt before; a loop where feeling the other's emotions increased your own and that in turn fed the other's and so on until release. It was enticing, it would be so easy to get caught up in, but Vogel shied away.

He returned to his physical location, panting as though he'd run a long distance and trying to squash the adrenaline and arousal he'd picked up from the other two. Gripps both looked and felt amused. _I warned you, kid._

_Not a kid,_ Vogel replied automatically. He pushed himself to his feet, wobbling a little until Gripps steadied him. Vogel felt a surge of anger, he'd come all this distance and only Gripps had bothered to care. He knew it was petty, but the second hand emotions had pumped him up too much for that to matter.

There was a second as Gripps contemplated stopping Vogel, then he shrugged and followed, wanting a physical as well as emotional front seat.

Cross and Martin were in the lobby. They had frozen in place the second they felt Vogel's anger, Martin pinned to the wall by a knife through his leather jacket's sleeve and Cross trying to break Martin's choke hold. Vogel, who had been expecting something more horizontal and less clothed based on the emotional feedback, would have lost his nerve if it hadn't been for the fact they'd _know_ if he did.

He walked out into the center of the lobby, the wreckage of the others' occupancy as easy to navigate as a path he'd taken a thousand times. He stopped in the center of a red painted pentagram. “So, here I am,” he said, a challenge in his mind for any of them to dare find him lacking. “Love what you've done with the place.”

Martin's chuckle sounded exactly as it had in the mind place. By some silent agreement, so quick Vogel hadn't registered it, Martin and Cross called a temporary truce. Cross stepped away, sitting on the remains of a large cupboard that looked like it had been dropped from the balcony on the second floor running around the lobby. It also looked far too big to have fit over the edge without jamming against the ceiling.

“That one was here when we arrived, actually,” Gripps said, leaning against the door frame behind Vogel and meaning the pentagram.

Martin yanked the knife free in a single smooth sweep, then twirled it idly as he stalked towards Vogel. Vogel felt as though he was back in the mind forest, the pack leader the first to investigate. Wait, was leader the right word? Neither of the others seemed to defer to him in any way except this.

“It's just 'cause he's the oldest,” Gripps explained.

“Plus if you're actually dangerous he's the one that gets hurt,” Cross added with a grin.

Martin's flicked the knife in Cross' direction without looking and Cross leaned lazily to the side to avoid it. While Vogel was still watching it quiver in the wall, Martin closed the distance between them and pressed their foreheads together. The physical contact felt like an electric shock and then faded to a dull warmth. A blue glow spread over them from the point their skin met.

Vogel felt Cross and Gripps step closer, even though all he could see was the intensity of Martin's eyes. He held out his hands towards them and they took them, the blue glow running down Vogel's arms, then spreading out to include the others. Martin had reached out at the same moment and together he and Vogel pulled Gripps and Cross closer. Instinctively, they pressed their foreheads against the sides of Martin and Vogel's. Those pairs that were opposite clasped hands around the backs of those to either side.

They had all fed recently, or in Vogel's case had taken enough, so their energy reserves were high. As they melted into each others' minds, the energy flared. The blue glow grew brighter and brighter, until it hurt to look at even from outside, every window shining through a thick layer of dirt.

They let go.

The glass shattered, spraying the ground outside the hotel for a good hundred meters in every direction. The next to go were the wooden parts. The shattered furniture in the lobby evaporated into splinters, which either embedded themselves in the walls or joined the glass shards outside. The whole building creaked in warning as the door and window frames shattered.

The mortar between the bricks began to crumble and then the bricks themselves. Though the building was collapsing around them, not even a splinter touched the four, now one, in the center of the chaos. The semi exploded, gas tank pierced, then its shrapnel was swept up and obliterated.

It was only about half a minute from when it started when the blue light stopped like a switch had been thrown and the four bodies collapsed, unconscious. They lay there, in the middle of the damage which ended exactly at the edge of the pentagram, until the police arrived.

 

When they woke, they were in separate cells in a facility run by the government organization known as Project Blackwing.


End file.
